Sunday, March 27, 2011

After wading though the massive lines of one at kmart this morning I emerged the proud owner of a brand new Nintendo 3ds. Then after fooling around with the 3d toggle bar I decided to kick it to the max and see what this baby can do. At once I was dizzy and nauseous and I swear at one point it tore a hole in the fabric of time and space, but I didn't care, this thing is awesome. It's like rubbing your eyes and watching the cascade of fireworks explode atop the dark canvas of your eyelids wishing that you could see it forever, but after a while your eyes start to burn like Icarus too close to the sun and you are plummeted to the ground from whence your began, the fading lights becoming a diminished trail of beauty. Still there should be a warning, I don't know if eye cancer is a real thing, but I'm pretty sure this causes it.

The system is amazing though, the augmented 3d cards made me wet myself; the 3d in general is great, I mean why couldn't I have had this as a kid, instead I got the Virtual Boy and a bottle of Tylenol; the software is chock full of fun apps and blows away any gaming os I've ever seen in terms of fun apps except for iOS which Nintendo is trying to become; the graphics are really quite cool looking, especially in 3d where you can get a sense for the weight of a character; the buttons are spot on the best I've used, clicky and not at all mushy like the 3ds lite; and finally, pilotwings is just plain awesome, seriously it's like they played a crap ton of the n64 version right before developing it, not crazy on the reliance of miis though...I hate miis so much.

As happy as I am with it, there are a few problems.

#1 Dear Nintendo, why would you put the power button where the start and select button used to go? I mean seriously! SERIOUSLY!#2 The battery is meh. It isn't as bad as my 3gs iPhone (where I would jump for joy at 3 hours) but it isn't great.#3 I don't like the shiny plastic coat on the shell, it makes it feel like a cheap Asus netbook. The hinges are also a bit loose which doesn't inspire great confidence in putting it in your pocket.#4 Viewing angles of 3d. It doesn't ruin the experience but when you are trying to weave through 3d terrain in hopes of shaving off seconds on your time in Pilotwings you find yourself getting blurred rather easily. Again, it doesn't ruin the experience, it just removes you from the game a bit. At medium setting though, I didn't have many problems with this, but dang does full 3d look beautiful. Hopefully this will be fixed by new panels in the next go around and since my wife has already stated she wants one of her own, I'll probably be upgrading.#5 No internet browser. Dear Lord Nintendo, why did you put an icon for it if it doesn't exist and tells you to wait for an update?!?